I think they've made some changes in the last couple years that are promising. The FFXIV flop got their attention. And Nomura concentrating on KH and letting Tabata finish FFXV seems like a step in the right direction. Another big change is that they've slowly begun to open up to their fanbase.
Yeah, I think it's more of a management thing. I remember reading somewhere that most of the upper management are Enix guys, so cue the "They destroyed Square from the inside!" jokes and what not. Because if it was just one or two people causing the problem all you have to do is fire those people and that's the end of your problem. A company's vision isn't likely to change until they stop making money.
Nomura went from being the "concept artist" guy to managing both Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, Yoshida or Kasuga (I think it was Kasuga because I remember his name starting with a H) started making smart decisions with A Realm Reborn, and of course Tabata is doing a lot of things I hope Square is taking notes on, but that's just three people out of how many? Nomura becoming the go-to guy was a big problem for me. I point to that as the beginning of the end. Not that the guy didn't give us some good games, but he's not a good storyteller, and his designs have gotten worse over time (and I never particularly liked them in the first place). I can't blame it all on any specific designer, though, because it seems the company as a whole changed, developed a new guiding principle and I guess the designers are doing the best they can within that new vision, but even though you can polish a turd, that doesn't mean someone else is going to want to buy it off you.
Who knows what happened there. Maybe they were in the process of training their younger talent and "The Spirit Within" happened. All I know is after that movie didn't make back what it owe they cut Sakaguchi, fired a bunch of guys who worked on FFX, merged with Enix and then made X-2 to try to get some of that money back and the downward spiral went from there. Nomura went from being the "concept artist" guy to managing both Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, Yoshida or Kasuga (I think it was Kasuga because I remember his name starting with a H) started making smart decisions with A Realm Reborn, and of course Tabata is doing a lot of things I hope Square is taking notes on, but that's just three people out of how many? I think Nomura gets more crap than he gets praise, too, but I don't know enough about him to know if the criticism is valid or not. Jesus Christ, I could write a book on the subject.
I am a little surprised, and a lot disappointed. I mean, Uematsu and Sakaguchi are basically irreplaceable, but I would have thought those older guys would have developed a good team to leave behind. I would think that would be part of the process.
A MMO that had to be rebuilt from the ground up and a game they only published. At least they're recent. RE4 is a decade old now. That is true, and considering most of the talent left to form Mistwalker and Monolith Soft, and there were no one left to pick up the slack, I'm not surprised by that, really.
I don't know if they've made their money back, but FFXIV has turned into what I would call a success. And the new Tombraider, I believe. But they're certainly well past the point of making artistic games. They've certainly done nothing special in a long long time.
I compare my relationship to Square with my relationship to the Chiefs. You want them to go to the Super Bowl one more time, but you know deep down it's never going to happen and it makes you so mad people wonder how you're a fan in the first place. I have the same relationship with Capcom, but at least Capcom actually had a financial and critical success in Resident Evil 4 despite my dislike for the game. When was the last time Square could say that?
Yeah, very true. Which is why I've moved away from following companies and instead just try to gauge each game individually. It's hard to get away from SE though. It's like an unhealthy relationship that you know needs to end, but it was so good in the beginning you trick yourself into thinking it can be like that again.
It's not just Square. Capcom has done the same thing with its Mega Man and Resident Evil IPs, and Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid games aren't what they used to be, and he's the best developer Japan has to offer. Then in the West you have companies like Ubisoft just pissing off everybody.
